Airliner crashes, killing six and injuring 26

Moscow  Six people were killed and 26 injured in a plane crash Saturday in the central Russian city of Samara, the government said.

Yuri Naryshkin, a spokesman for regional emergency authorities, told NTV television the plane touched down before the landing strip, then overturned.

Prosecutors probing the crash said in an official statement that the plane touched down about 400 yards short of the landing strip. Regional prosecutor Alexei Kopylov told NTV television that pilot error and bad weather were regarded as the primary causes of the crash.

The plane, carrying 50 passengers and seven crew, was en route from the Siberian city of Surgut to the western city of Belgorod with a stop in Samara, a city on the Volga river, about 550 miles southeast of Moscow.